Saturday, November 12, 2016

Little Girls Bounce

The words of the title come from a chapter of the book I am writing. It has several little girls as characters on the pages. One thing that is true in this book is that little girls are resilient.

Like a rubber ball, a girl can land in the mud with a splat. Either can be lost in the back corner of a closet or under the bed. All manner of bad things can happen to a ball or a little girl. The resilience doesn't take away the danger of it or the chance that something or someone can do mischief to the very essence of the ball or girl.

You might think that a rubber ball, because it is so spongy and resilient can't be hurt. It can. Little bounces on the concrete don't show too much. But over time, the red surface can start to show a little wear. Sun beats down on the ball left out too long in the weather. Oxidation breaks the chemical bonds. Over time, a shiny rubber ball shows the insults on its now-pitted surface.

Girls show insults and neglect too. Quiet -- frighteningly, unnaturally quiet, or loud -- rebelliously, outrageously loud. Cuts. Bruises. Scars. Scarification toughens the skin and the heart. You can see it, if you look, the damage.

But if someone will pick up either, girl or ball, and try to engage their natural inclinations, their creator-given essence, the someone will find that either, ball or girl, will bounce. Things have changed in the chemical bonds and the soul of the girl, for sure. Never will either be the same as before the insults and damage. But bounce we do. And I am living proof.

My childhood and early adult years were damaging. For a long time, it looked as though I would never overcome the pain I felt or be what I was intended to be. I had to start to believe that I could overcome the damage of child sex abuse, a violent alcoholic father, and the rape I endured just as I was becoming a woman on my own. I had to see that I am valuable and worthy, no matter what scars I carry. It took my child's future looming before me to see that I had to parent myself as I was parenting her. I had to ask for help and take it. I had to work on the things I wanted to change. It was and still is hard work.

Now, I try to point out the truths I have learned to those who still hurt and haven't healed. I will tell you how it was with me. I will hear what you want to say. I will wish and pray for you to bounce back. You can.

Book Shelf

Can It Really Be Taught?: resisting lore in Creative Writing Pedagogy by Ritter and Vanderslice

thisconnectionofeveryonewithlungs by Juliana Spahr

One Big Self: an Investigation by C D Wright

Scratch Sides by Kristin Prevallet

An Essay in Asterisks by Jena Osman

Shut Up Shut Down by Mark Nowak

Don't Let Me Be Lonely by Claudia Rankine

Commons by Myung Mi Kim

Remember to Wave by Kaia Sand

Blue Front by Martha Collins

Dictee by Theresa Hak Kyung Cha

Zong by M. NourbeSe Philip and Setaey Adamu Boateng

The Midnight by Susan Howe

The Nonconformist's Memorial by Susan Howe

Selected Poems of Charles Olson

Paterson by William Carlos Williams

12 Million Black Voices by Richard Wright

The Annotated Waste Land with Eliot's Contemporary Prose by T S Eliot

ABC of Reading by Ezra Pound

The Collected Poems of Muriel Rukeyser

The Collected Works of Billy the Kid by Michael Ondaatje

Fuck You - Aloha - I Love You by Juliana Spahr

Bad History by Barrett Watten

The Paradise of Bachelors and the Tartarus of Maids by Herman Melville

Moby Dick by Herman Melville

The Cantos of Ezra Pound

The Complete Poetry and Prose of Geoffrey Chaucer by Mark Allen

The Consolation of Philosophy by Boethius

Insel by Mina Loy

Wallace Stegner: Angle of Repose; Wolf Willow: A History, a Story, and a Memory of the Last Plains Frontier; Beyond the Hundredth Meridian: John Wesley Powell and the Second Opening of the West; Crossing to Safety